Black as Night
by Sundance Coyote
Summary: 1st person POV Bellatrix story that picks up when Voldemort breaks her out of Azkaban in OOTP and follows the subsequent events of canon...But Voldemort has changed, a vast difference from the Tom she remembers...though Bellatrix has changed, too, and now, are they finally ready to realize they're stronger together? Bellamort fic based loosely on Red as Blood by Tanith Lee.
1. Prologue

**Prologue:**

 **A/N: Yes, I know. I caved. I started another story while I have a million going on-but I have reasons! =P Right now, I have a direction for Raw (my Harry/Bellatrix story) and Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Secret (my Slytherin Harry story), but I've presently lost direction for Blood and Crystal (my Bellamort story, sequel to Bella and the Beast). For awhile, it was a thing that I was still updating while I was working through some shit, but now it's losing it's fire and people aren't reading it anymore...so rather than just abandon the story, I've put it on hiatus. Buuuuuut I still want to write about Bellamort and I also wanted to try writing something in first person. So, with that, I present to you...Black as Night, my latest passion.**

 **As always, thank you for reading my work-you've no idea how much it motivates me!**

 **xoxo,**

 **SunDance**

 _~I have dreamt of a place for you and I_

 _No one knows who we are there_

 _All I want is to give my life only to you_

 _I've dreamt so long I cannot dream anymore_

 _Let's run away, I'll take you there_

 _We're leaving here tonight~_

I wake to the sound of breaking glass somewhere far away from me. Breaking glass...followed by the unmistakable sound of rock crumbling into the sea, as in my mind I am drifting with it. I've been here too long. Fourteen years? Fifteen? I've lost track...and somewhere along the line, I stopped journaling, too. After awhile, when I thought I'd told You everything there was to tell about me...when the pages were full and I'd written away all that white space in the margins, the spine, the lines between the other lines of small black text...when I realized You wouldn't ever read any of it anyway (not because I gave up hope that You would return, but because I gave up on myself having anymore stories in me worth telling)...when day after day, the entries were the same, I stopped writing. All the same: darkness, screams, noises, starving, shivering, cold...Cold. No news. A death. Cold. The sound of the dementors dragging the body away. Shivering. Crying (in the beginning and then only ever so often)...Starving. Cold. No news. No news. Nothing. Cold.

Then I heard about You coming back. Even the dementors were excited-drifting about making unintelligible hissing noises to each other like they do right before someone dies, like they do when they get inside your head. I thought You would come for me right away. You must have heard, right? I never gave up on You. I tortured those Aurors to bring You back, because I knew they knew. I let myself get caught instead of going down fighting because I knew to die such a weak, pathetic death would be useless to You. I wrote You eleven or twelve or thirteen years of letters I knew You'd never read, just to bring myself closer to You. I kissed my Dark Mark every night/day/unknown time before falling asleep hoping You could feel it...but maybe You forgot about me. When I thought about this, I cried until everything went black and I welcomed it because everything is gray here. There were days I woke disappointed by the absence of pain. I never wanted to be here long enough to become numb. But on this night I wake to the sound of destruction, I welcome the fresh pain I feel, too. I must be drifiting farther now, I think, as I feel a chink of rock graze my forehead-this warmth-is it water? The sea? Blood?

I hear a sound like an explosion and feel a burst of incredible pain. I close my eyes. I must be almost to the sea (I feel the wind against my hair for the first time in I don't know how long) and I wait to smell salt. Instead, I smell sulfur. Lead. The crushed dust of stone. I hear myself moan out and I wonder if I am finally dying. I tried for You, really, I did. I outlasted Barty by about a decade I think. And the countless others they buried outside the fortress.

"Bellatrix," someone says, and I try to move but I can't. Something heavy is pinning me down.

"Bellatrix," they say again, with more urgency this time. "Get up, the Aurors will be here any minute. We need to be going. Now." I can no longer feel the wind, but the feeling of someone staring down at me. The feeling is strong and full of life, a real human being, not a dementor, here with me? In my disbelief, I force open my eyes and in a landscape of gray, I see red-not blood-eyes. Your eyes. And now I know I am dying. I wouldn't want to get up if I could. I just want to lie here taking You all in. You don't look the way you do in my memories, after all. You are different-and of course there is nothing wrong with that-but You are different. Taller (or maybe that's the angle You are at standing over me), paler-skin white and hard as quartz, and upon closer inspection, covered in thousands of scars. Your nose is no longer full, but flattened into two snake-like slits. And all those tiny scars...only visible to me now I'm really looking for them...as if you've been stitched together by unpracticed hands, out of tiny particles of air itself.

And somehow I want You more than I ever have before, now that I know that You, too, have suffered. Know what it's like to be hurt by someone-maybe even someone You never expected to hurt You. It's like You are back as I remember, but at the same time...just different...not exactly _human..._ but you are beautiful in ways a younger version of myself never could have fathomed.

Yes, I am still the Bella who resents her husband for his wasted affections, who never wants (or wanted) to be anyone's...But all I want in this moment is for You to consume me and keep me forever. I shiver as I look up at you telling me to move. Shivering. Crying. Cold. Until the gray (and red, too) disintegrate into black.

 _~At sweet night, you are my own_

 _Take my hand_

 _We're leaving here tonight_

 _There's no need to tell anyone_

 _They'd only hold us down_

 _So by the morning light_

 _We'll be half way to anywhere_

 _Where love is more than just your name~_


	2. Chapter 1: Rennervate

**Chapter 1: Rennervate: To wake from the darkness**

 _~Sometime, 1991_

 _Dear Voldemort,_

 _I'm not scared, You know. I think that's probably the most important thing to say first. I was the first among my sisters to go to Hogwarts and I wasn't scared then...but maybe there wasn't really anything to be afraid of. I wasn't scared to go to Azkaban, either...I've been here eleven years already and it hasn't broken me, not like they said it would anyway. When I started writing it wasn't with the intention of staying sane, either-I never cared about that. I was excited to lose my mind, I think...but the dementors are fucking soul-sucking to be around (no pun intended…'siriusly'...hmph) but they're drawn to the weak of us here, the downcast, the ones who've given up and if I can keep myself going somehow, they'll leave me alone save for the few especially persistent ones who think they can make me give in-well I will not give up. I swear it. I will not give up until I can see You again. I know You are out there somehow, not giving up, and I know that You will read these someday-even if it is after I am gone, or maybe especially then, when You won't be able to punish me for everything I might say in these pages. The truth is, though, I have to write to You. If I think about You intensely enough to feel like I am talking to You, I can keep the dementors away from me as strongly as if I had my spider patronus here with me now. ~_

January 1996:

For the first time in I don't know how long, I am warm. I feel light on my face and in my hair and there is softness all around me. I want to open my eyes, but I'm afraid I am dreaming. I don't know anything anymore, only that I am not cold. And once more, I dreamed of You...only this time, you came to rescue me from my prison the way I envisioned you would for over a decade. But I am terrified to open my eyes and let down my heart. In fact, I am afraid I would not survive such a profound disappointment. You were so beautiful in the dream, I recall, as I roll over onto my side (still without opening my eyes). _Where am I?_ I project the thought out into the universe without restraint, not really expecting any kind of response...but then-

~ _Good morning, Bellatrix._

Holy shit. I hear someone say my name-do I? No, it definitely came from inside my own head. I would say I must be going mad if I weren't already mad. Then it occurs to me. I am in the room with a Legilimens. And dementors can't perform legilimency. I am in a room with another witch or wizard-and a powerful one, at that. Unless I am still dreaming.

~ _Are you awake?_

~ _I...I don't know_ , I think back.

~ _What do you feel?_

I hear the question. And I consider it.

 _~Warm,_ I think back. After all, it was the first thing I noticed. With my eyes still closed, I mentally explore the rest of my body. _Hair-underneath me...knotted. Knotted really badly. Fuck. Head-sticky. I'm covered in sweat. Ew. It's been so long since I've felt sweat. Face-burns, my cheek, when I rolled over...Mouth-dry, damn, I'm so thirsty...this is like the shittiest hangover I've had in awhile. Neck-stiff, weird, must have slept at a bad angle...Body-numb and heavy-when did lying down start to take so much effort? And why are my nipples this hard for it being so warm-_

 _~That's quite thorough._

 _~I'm sorry, I didn't mean to think all that out loud...or well out loud in my mind...or whatever this is._

 _~It's alright. Maybe I shouldn't have been listening._

I smirk before catching myself. I feel okay enough until I try to move...then it's like every inch of me weighs ten tons- _but why would I want to move? I like it right where I am...so soft, so warm…_

 _~You don't have to move if you don't want to. But I'd like for you to try and eat something...it's been a long time since you've had...decent food, I expect._

Now I definitely don't want to open my eyes. This is turning into the best dream I've had in weeks, and couple the warm bits and food bits with the part about You rescuing me earlier, and I definitely don't want to go back to reality. But now I'm concentrating on the idea of 'decent food' so intently I can smell it. It's everything I ever liked about breakfast before Azkaban, all combined in one-there's a sweet, sticky maple syrup, slightly burnt toast...and bacon.

 _~I miss bacon…_

 _~Open your eyes, Bellatrix._ Once more, I'm so afraid, but in the spirit of what is perhaps my own desperation, a longing so fierce to leave what I've come to know for the past fourteen years that I'll take anything else, I open my eyes-

And see all at once, that nothing is gray. The light hits my eyes and I recoil on instinct-fearing the light was one of the first things You taught me, after all. In a moment, as I process things, I realize the light is the sun streaming through a high roundtop window on the left end of a long room paneled in black damask. I am in a bed supported by shining ebony posts carved to look like snakes and all around me, everything is soft and black-pillows, sheets I am sure are silk, and more blankets than I ever could have needed. Gingerly, I count the layers between my fingers-one, two, three, four, five blankets in varying degrees of thickness.

~ _...You wouldn't stop shivering. All night, you shivered._

I roll over onto my right side, again aware of how impossibly heavy my body feels to me. And then I see red and I am melting, melting. And shivering, though not from any sort of cold this time, because know I am still dreaming. You are here, sitting on the edge of this beautiful bed looking over at me with Your red eyes, holding a tray of breakfast food. It's such an absurd conjuration of my mind that I laugh aloud.

 _~You would laugh at me, Bellatrix?_

 _~I'm laughing because I know I am dreaming._

 _~Are you so sure of yourself in your dreams?_

"No…" I hear myself whisper. All my loose thoughts and feelings falling into their puzzled places in my mind like chinks of faerie dust in a snowglobe. "No...it's not...you're not…" There are tears streaking my face now and I hurry to rub them away in my embarrassment, but You...You reach out and _touch me._ It's a simple touch, but so gentle. Your long fingers, cool against my limp wrist, reaching, reaching...then with a bit more force (though still not enough to hurt me like I know You could), You press your index finger into my Dark Mark, and I begin to understand.

A rush of thoughts come charging at me with the force of a jinx to the head and I struggle to latch on to and internalize them.

A small cottage in Godric's Hollow. You approach with a cloak shrouding Your face and one hand on Your wand at Your side. I know this night. It's Halloween night, 1981. I invited You to a Halloween party, but You didn't show. Now, I watch You easily kill James and Lily Potter as they foolishly try to protect their infant son (this is about that stupid prophecy isn't it?) I watch You turn Your wand on the baby. And then...I feel pain as I've never imagined...like the Cruciatus Curse, while being blown apart at the same time.

I feel weightless. I am weightless. I don't see You anywhere...but I feel You, if that makes sense. Are You a ghost? Where are we? Some sort of forest I've never seen before…

I see Hogwarts. And a pathetic little man-pale and trembling in robes of mauve with a matching turban around his head that reeks of garlic. I've never seen him before, but I still feel You all around so I follow him into the Forbidden Forest, deeper in than I've ever been before. Deeper even, than where I used to go to have sex with Rowle back in sixth year when You still thought of me as a child...it's early evening and the sun is going down quickly over the trees...I long to look at the stars and trace their patterns with my fingertips like I used to do before Azkaban, but the man's eyes are focused on the ground, at something glistening there in the dirt, silver as mercury, sparkling like diamonds-unicorn blood. He stoops, drinks it...then begins to unwrap the turban...where...in the back of his head...Your face. I'm disgusted and my stomach turns unpleasantly, but at the same time, I can't look away. You take a deep breath of that cool night air, and I follow Your eyes up to the thousands of stars.

The sorcerer's stone, You say to the pathetic little man playing Your host. The unicorn blood is keeping You alive, but only just. With the stone, You will return stronger than ever. With the stone, You will never again know anything so close to death as this...but the boy, the same boy, plots to thwart You...He's a just a boy, eleven years old, what threat is he? He kills the man, saves the stone, and we are weightless once more.

A redheaded child paints of Your return in blood on the walls of Hogwarts. She has the leather-bound journal You kept in our school days…(did You ever write of me, as I wrote of You?) I am distracted then, as You emerge from the diary looking as I remember You when first we met...Beautiful. Hair still full and dark, eyes still brown instead of red...You've got Your Head Boy badge pinned next to Your Slytherin Prefect and Quidditch Captain ones...this memory of You, exceedingly arrogant, eternally seventeen, with eyes for anyone but the loud-mouthed little girl who tries to sit beside You at dinner...but I have little time to dwell on this, as my head is killing me, as if it's splitting open, while I'm here watching Your soul slip away once more into a trail of ink and blood and basilisk venom.

My blood traitor cousin escapes from Azkaban all on his own, much to my shame and embarrassment. And there's fucking Wormtail...turns out he was there all along, denying You, denying us, living as a literal rat...like the coward he has always been-why is he the one You choose to bring you back?

An old house stands alone on a hill, falling apart away from the watchful eyes of the little Muggle town it overlooks. This is Your father's house, I recall. This is the first place You ever fucked me...it was a few months before You disappeared and after we started fucking around after meetings and not telling anyone (not even telling ourselves it meant anything). It was Your idea. You wanted to punish the spirit of your father in the best way You knew how...until this night. Wormtail is there (and Barty...how the fuck did he get out before me? I saw him die?!) and they're...bringing You back? Only You aren't quite human. Some kind of incantation...and snake venom...and now You look like a creepy baby thing and I feel as though someone's holding me underwater...making me struggle just to breathe.

Bone of Your father, flesh of Your servant, blood of Your enemy (that horrible boy again)...and now You are beautiful and corporeal once more, covered in those tiny interlocking scars the naked eye can barely see. Suddenly, nothing is weightless anymore.

Barty gets the dementor's kiss...now he really is gone. It's said to be unbearable to witness, but what's worse to me is the moment You call your death eaters back for the first time in thirteen years...and I am not there with You.

You find out what I have done in Your honor, where I've been for over a decade waiting...and now I watch and listen as You plot to win over the dementors and break me free...Your most loyal servants will be beside You once more, and then we will be unstoppable, You say...Yes, You plan to break out all of us...but the look in Your eyes...am I imagining it, or is it different for me than for any of the others? And what's that hollowness I feel? I am no longer weightless, but something inside of me is definitely missing.

And then it is last night (because time is not linear, after all). You're blasting through the prison with spell after spell, looking for me. And then you see me there looking up at you, pinned down beneath a chunk of rock and bits of glass and metal...our eyes find each others, and we are home. Again, weightless. But not empty anymore.

Slowly, the last images of the memories fade and I am left lying back on the bed as breathless as if I've just run a great length.

"You need to eat, Bellatrix. We've got a number of upcoming plans in the works and if you want to participate, you'll need to get your strength back." This is the first time You've spoken aloud to me and I savor it. I can feel You using your power to soothe me, or maybe You don't have to. I accept the food You offer me on a silver tray and it tastes so wonderful I've got to close my eyes and take in every flavor, every smell. I had forgotten the way bacon grease smells, the way toast crumbles into your lap when you take a bite, how much better scrambled eggs taste with ketchup than without...I wonder who made this food-whoever they are, I want to hug them.

"Strength, Bellatrix. I don't want to lose a good servant...if you want to be battle-ready, you've got to do better than that," You say and with a flick of Your wand, the plate I've just cleared fills again with food. I'm working on getting the impenetrable shroud back around my thoughts because I don't want You to know Your remarks sadden me, if only just...the way You still call me a servant, group me in with the others, deny what You know, what You've always known to be true...that You care for me more deeply than You do the others. Those memories You shared with me...I felt pain there with You-pain and reunion and longing last night in my cell...rage and sadness at my absence last June...desperation when You learned what became of me...would You experience any of those sensations for any of the others? Would You sit next to any of them, feeding them comfort foods off of a silver platter? I think not...and I must be doing an alright job of concealing it from You, because You aren't punishing me.

 _~You're tired. Perhaps I shouldn't have put you through all of that so soon...but to catch you up on the past fourteen years or so, that way, was easier and faster than trying to explain it all to you...especially given how many times you'd likely interrupt me._

You must be taking my silence for exhaustion...and I suppose that's for the best...because really, it's only a twinge of sadness (and now guilt) within a sea of gratefulness and joy and loyalty...and, something more-You'd laugh at me-that thing I've always called love. But I've only just seen You...I don't want to lose You again so soon...but what I think outwardly is

 _~But...my Lord...it has been too long, surely we have more to discuss._

"We will have more time to talk. For now, sleep."

And I do. Because I have no reason not to trust You'll talk to me again. Things are different now. I'm back, and I will be back, stronger than I've ever been...and whatever You're planning...this time, we will succeed. Because I will be there with you.

 _~Sometime, 1991_

 _Dear Voldemort,_

 _What to say? I've got a lifetime here to write You everything you already know about me-those deep parts of my soul I tried to hide, but You could always see. So maybe I should start with the obvious. The parts You might not know. I'm a Scorpio, born 18 October 1951 to Cygnus and Druella Black. It was rainy the day I was born, three days late, to my parents who were expecting a son._

 _They tried twice more and had two more daughters and then I think my father gave up after that. Rather than keep popping out kids, he started treating me as the son he'd always wanted when I was a very small child, and the times I spent with him were some of the greatest joys in my life before I met You. ~_


	3. Chapter 2: Reparo

**Chapter 2: Reparo: To repair**

 _~They were going to name me Orion, but then decided on Bellatrix after they saw me, keeping with the Blacks tradition of naming all their pureblood children after constellations and stars. I'm glad my name isn't Orion-it went on to be the middle name of my dumbass blood traitor cousin, Sirius. He was born the same year as my sister Andromeda, two years after me. Even when we were toddlers, Andromeda was logical and practical and I was wild and headstrong, like my father wanted me to be. My mother wanted her sugar-sweet girly girl stereotype, but wouldn't get her until Narcissa another two years later._

January 1996:

The next time I awake, You are not there, but I see a piece of parchment folded in half at the foot of the bed. Unrolling it slowly, I read:

"Bellatrix,

A matter has arisen overseas that requires my immediate attention. I expect to return by nightfall. If you wake in the meantime, however, I hope my home provides you with anything you might need.

V"

I close my eyes and let the letter fall back onto the bed through my outstretched fingertips. How I've missed this home. I breathe in so deeply my shoulders shake, the smells of it-like oak moss and patchouli, the hallways like patchwork quilts of stone walls-this castle that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, now rightfully Yours. And the memories, mine, ours, seem to seep through those walls to ensnare me. I beat the familiar path down the crooked upstairs hall to the room with the tub I've always liked-the one with jet streams like waterfalls. Suddenly all I want is to wash my hair.

The water does not disappoint. I fill the tub as quickly as I can-turning on all the taps at once-including the ones that make the water run in a metallic silver color that glistens against the obsidian of the tub like the background of the night sky-and the ones whose water smells like evergreen. There's something vulnerable to me about being naked in Your house again after all this time. It hits me all at once then, how old I've gotten. How my skin is wrinkled and dirty. How unkempt I am after so many years in Azkaban not caring.

I abandon my prison robes on the side of the tub and dive in all at once, appreciating its vastness, like the tub in the Prefects bathroom at Hogwarts that Rookwood used to give me all the passwords to. It was fifth year, I think, when I started fucking him.

I realize as soon as my body hits the water, that I shouldn't have done this all at once. The heat is overwhelming after growing used to so much cold. My heart accelerates, racing beyond anything I'm used to. I feel the water searing my skin and I start to jump to try and get away, only to fall back into the water, laughing like I haven't done in years.

Three times, I wash my hair in those evergreen bubbles, each time massaging my scalp deeper than the last and then combing my nails through the knots in my hair until they can come cleanly through from root to end.

I scrub my skin until it's raw. Clean every inch of myself with a focus that scares me a little, but at least I have something to focus on. My fingers tumble over things I don't remember-exposed bones that once were curves, scars I'm seeing in the light for the first time...and the one from last night, the freshest, a gash across my stomach from where the rock pinned me to the floor of my cell, is still red and swollen to the touch.

After my bath, I climb out, tracking a pool of water across the stone floor until I can find something to dry off with in the corner cabinet.

I wrap myself in two thick black towels, one around my body and the other around my hair, but I've nothing to change into and no wand, so I decide to take a look around the house for anything I can put on. Maybe You still have something of mine here after all these years? I almost hate myself for even thinking it.

I remember where Your chamber is, even though it was only once that You ever took me there. Just once. After a meeting, and not even to have sex, but to get something you needed me to keep for you-a goblet I haven't thought about in fifteen years, with the Hufflepuff crest on it, of all things.

There's a hallway on the second highest floor, through a door that blends in with the stone pattern on the wall-a dark, wood-paneled hallway lit only by torches-and at the end of it, a portrait of Merlin flanked by two dragons. One of the dragons is red and the other is white.

"You are not the Dark Lord," the red dragon hisses. She turns to face me, her eyes the color of warm honey but slitted in fury.

"Well spotted...I'm..a friend of his," I hear the words come out of my own mouth before I can stop myself.

"The Dark Lord has no friends!" shouts the red dragon. The white dragon looks at me next, with eyes that are blue and less angry.

"I guess if she knows the password, we have to allow her entry." I nod to indicate my willingness to try my hand and the white dragon dips her head respectfully, asking me to finish her phrase.

"When Priory Oak shall tumble down,

"...then shall fall Carmarthen Town," I whisper. Merlin smiles, the portrait swings open, and I enter Your room. Lucky chance, perhaps, my knowing the answer...but I read all about Merlin when I was school-age. He was a powerful Slytherin after all.

I feel...warmth. Familiarity in the sudden You-ness all around me coupled with the foreboding notion that I shouldn't be here.

The walls are a simple grey stone...simple, but powerful, and flecked in places with quartz that reflects off the flickering wall sconces like starlight.

Against the farmost wall, rows of winged bookcases sweep up to the ceiling, shelves of walnut dulled with onyx finishing and stuffed with thousands of leather-bound volumes on the darkest magics imaginable, wizarding history, pure blood family histories, medieval architecture and even (I laugh to myself) a few collections of children's stories like the kind my mother would have read to me at nursery age.

I approach Your desk and, perhaps it is the certain dream state I've been moving through since waking up here or the adrenaline pumping through my veins since coming alive after so many years being dead, but I...sit in Your chair. It's a regal piece befitting You, My Lord-a claw-footed Toscano throne with sculpted gargoyles on the arms. I close my eyes and breathe in the feeling of You sitting here reading one of your books or composing a letter to someone important, perhaps drinking from a tumbler of the cognac You always enjoyed as You plan a better world for all of us...I've always wanted You to fuck me on this desk. Throw me down and yank up my dress so fiercely that papers scatter, toss me down and take me there, just like that, my back flush against the cold glassy obsidian looking up at You looking down at me.

I let out the breath I've been holding and absentmindedly pick up a loose quill, letting its sharp nub prick the inner pad of my thumb, staining it with ink and a little bit of blood before I fully realize what I'm doing. Sighing, I toss the quill aside and fold my arms across my chest, where they settle over my towel and remind me why I came up here to begin with. Sighing again, I slip out of the chair and continue my exploration of Your study under the (mostly) accurate pretense that I'm looking for something to wear. I know there's a way to get into Your bedroom from here, some statue I need to touch or object I need to move (I remember that much), and some dormant, wicked part of me shivers awake at the thought of it.

It's not the standing bust of Salazar Slytherin with his shiny malachite eyes...no, that would be entirely too obvious. But the Wizard's Chess set beside it? Now that sparks something in me...some distant recognition. Heart pounding with excitement and nerve that surprises even myself, I start moving pieces around, watching them interact with each other in their usual violence. Just as I'm about to give up my cause and look somewhere else, I hear a small click.

Heart beating even more fiercely, I wait-for some door to slide open, a password portrait to reveal itself...but it doesn't. Instead, I watch awestruck as the chess set folds inward on itself and something rises from its surface.

To an unsuspecting eye, it might appear as a beautiful piece of medieval art, but I know it instantly as a Pensieve-and a lovely one at that, made of the same shiny black obsidian as much of your furnishing and guarded on its four corners by serpents carved out of jade. The depths of the Pensieve, perhaps the most magnificent of all, glitter with hundreds of tiny emeralds.

I'm not meaning to pry, I promise You, but I can't help myself. One finger. I stir the emeralds with one finger-and that's all it takes to suck me down, down into the last memory you viewed here.

 _ **-0000-00000-00000-00000-00000-00000-00000-0000-**_

 _I hit the floor less than gracefully and hasten to pull my towels back around myself as if I don't already know that no one can see me._

 _I'm in the main dining room of Your castle, where we used to have Death Eater meetings. I recognize the long glass table (elongated even further by magic to fit everyone around it) supported underneath it by heavy, curved metal legs shaped like human spinal columns. There are chairs all around it-all high-backed and black and topped with individual Dark Mark carvings, while the wall torches light up everything in an eerie sort of orange-white light._

 _In fact, it looks like a Death Eater meeting is either about to begin or just letting out-a younger Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy gather up loose sheets of paper and ask people in hushed tones if they need any more wine. And then my stomach twists in horror. This meeting is familiar to me, as is this night, a few days before Halloween, 1981. You are there, of course. You're standing up at the head of the table, bent down over some sort of moving diagram. I can't help but shiver as I look at You this way, just as I remember You to be before I went to Azkaban and bearing the face and body whose images I tried to hold tightly inside myself for the past fourteen years. The most beautiful person I've ever seen. Your hair is thick and black, like it was in Your school days. Your features, chiseled like Your body and Your arms with muscles that could cut glass just visible beneath the ripples in Your long dark robes. Here You are, in the prime of Your life and everything inside me has gone warm._

 _It must be the end of the meeting, I realize, as more people seem to be flitting out of the room than in, the overall feeling not solemn enough to be the beginning of anything of ours._

 _You look at me then and even though I know You're really looking through me, that You can't see me, that it's only a memory, I shiver again all the same._

 _I watch my younger self pretend to gather up her things and sip at the last of her wine and in the same moment, I am both knowing and curious._

 _I watch the last Death Eater exit the dining room and head out into the parlor for liquor and cigars with some of the others. I watch You, with a flick of Your wand and a hasty bit of nonverbal magic, shut the door and lock it from the inside. You gesture wordlessly to young Bella and she drifts to You with as much resolve as if You'd compelled her. She is used to this routine, after all._

 _She looks up at You with wide, blinking eyes, unsure if she is allowed to touch You or not. She's afraid You're going to yell at her, tell her "it's not like that, Bella," or "this is only meant as a physical release, nothing more." But You don't. Instead, You put Your hands on her arms and let Your fingers close around each of her thin wrists in turn. A small shiver passes through her and myself at the same time when she realizes she can touch You. She brushes the ends of her nails against Your arms right over Your Dark Mark tattoo and for a minute the two of you just look at each other._

 _And then all pretense falls away. Lips smash into each other almost violently. Young Bella's dress and lingerie fall into a heap of black on the stone floor._

 _Carefully and almost risking a certain tenderness, she begins to pull You out of Your robes and You assist her as if You're trying to get them off faster, slip inside her more quickly. And then Your clothes join hers on the floor, frozen here in time._

 _You grab her suddenly and swing her around, slamming her against the wall in between two torch lights with a force that vibrates the room and ricochetes into me where I stand, unable to stop watching us._

 _We are so naked, so beautiful, so young._

 _You fuck her against the wall and then once more right in the center of that grand dining table in the midst of all those flyway papers and half-scrawled plans and other detritus from the meeting._

 _After You take her, she pulls on and fixes her clothes as though nothing has passed between the two of you. Takes the last sip of her wine and sets the goblet on the same glass table where she came in Your arms just moments before. Glances over her shoulder, says entirely too casually, "Will you be attending Roddy's and my Halloween party, my Lord?"_

" _And why would I bother myself with such utter foolishness?"_

" _I just thought…"_

" _You never think, Bella." The remark sounds harsh but You lay a hand on one of her shoulders as You say it._

 _I frown. It's the last time You touched me before everything changed._

"Enjoying yourself, are you?" I shudder, but this time it isn't from arousal. I turn my gaze sharply from the younger You of the Pensieve to the new figure standing beside me now.

The new You, of present, all imperius and powerful and hardly even human, yet still just as beautiful as ever, is looking at me in a way I've never been looked at by another and fifteen years thrown suddenly forward in time, I still can't find my voice.

 _ **-0000-00000-00000-00000-00000-00000-00000-0000-**_

"My Lord-I…"

"Don't."

Our feet hit the floor back in Your study and my first instinct is to retreat from You as far as I can-whether to escape my as of yet unknown punishment or because I can't bring myself to face You, I am unsure.

I walk briskly to the Merlin portrait so I can go back out into the hall, put distance between us...but You don't follow after me.

I risk a quick glance over my shoulder and You're just...sitting there at Your desk, resting Your head against the palm of Your hand and still wearing Your traveling cloak.

"...my Lord? Is everything...alright?" My voice comes out more like a squeak that sounds nothing like me.

"Come here, Bella."

"Wh...what?" I chew my lower lip anxiously awaiting the punisment I know is coming and angry with myself for fucking up so tremendously after all that You risked to save me.

"Come and sit with me." I'm still not sure I heard You right, but I am before You in an instant-being that I am first and foremost Your servant and the least I can do is accept the consequences of my poor impulse control with gratitude and grace.

"I said sit with me, not cower before me," You say, Your voice not unlike that of the younger You in the Pensieve telling my younger self she doesn't think. I'm not thinking now. In fact, I might as well be immobilized. Sighing, You straighten up and place Your hands on Your legs, gesturing wordlessly in the same way the younger You did, too.

"My Lord…?" And then in an instant, You're grabbing onto me by the arm and pulling me towards You, into the chair with You, situating me onto Your lap as if I'm meant to be there.

"So long," You rasp into my ear. "So long since I've touched you. I'd like to do so now."

And You do. It's not sexual, not really. Your arms are around me, pressing my body against Yours, like You're trying to absorb something from me...and I of course, am a cesspool of sensations.

There's that always dominant, lustful part of me that's starting to feel warm around my pelvis. That part of me wants to stuff You inside of myself and finally be taken by You again somewhere outside my fantasies...that's the same part of me that likes to kill and torture in battle and light things on fire, an animalistic part that demands to be fed one way or another as often as possible-but then beneath the surface there's something else.

Something else that recognizes this...behavior...isn't normal.

Besides how You're acting with me, You seem tired. Not at all like the energetic, virile man I saw in the Pensieve. Call it worry. Call it friendship...call it whatever You will, if not love.

And then beneath all that, lies my own omnipresent fear of You. I've seen You hurt so many people, after all. What's to ever stop You from turning on me? And this new You...while I'm overwhelmingly aroused by Your power, You aren't the same. You brought Yourself back from death...but at what cost?

"Look at me, Bellatrix. There isn't anything for you to be afraid of...at least, not at present." I realize then that I must have let some of my thoughts slip out inadvertently and I hurry to replace the occlumency shroud around my mind.

Then of course I do what You ask-I look at You. Your skin, though still stretched over Your muscles like it's the wrong size, is now marred with scars. Your eyes burn red hot as they bore over me in my towel, all skinny and wrinkled and old...but somehow, here we are. Impossibly, against all odds, we are here, together.

"My Lord, it has been so many years...since I first saw your face...and it's still like being with an angel when I look at you," I whisper. I risk snaking up one of hands to let it fall against the side of Your face.

"The Dark Lord an...angel, Bella?" There's something of a glint of amusement in Your tone that humanizes You and makes me smile.

"You know, I used to think I didn't deserve your company...and then...and then I thought you didn't deserve me…"

"And now?"

"It's complicated...I mean, its always been complicated. We're both horrible people, in our ways...we've done horrible things...necessary things...but horrible things, as things go. I used to think I did it all for you...but I didn't. I did it all for me. To feed this part of me that will not otherwise lie still. And therein lies the difference between us...you think things through, I just..act...even when maybe I shouldn't." I pull my hand away from You and clap it over my mouth like I've just said something inappropriate and in a way I definitely have. I have said and thought far too many inappropriate things tonight...Maybe it is the effect of all those years by myself in Azkaban imagining conversations and letters passing between us that never were. Maybe it has given me a false closeness with You as if You were ever more than my master, and I ever more than Your servant.

"It is alright, for now, to say what is on your mind. I will not punish you. It will be best, I feel,-in the interest of moving forward with our plans-that we do not have so many secrets between us," You say. I hasten to readjust the shroud around my thoughts again thinking it may take me a day or two more before my Occlumency is back to its full strength.

"And what do you feel...my Lord?" I ask, surprised once more at my own nerve. If You're going to read all my thoughts anyway, what's the use in hiding any of them?

"Curious," You say.

"Why?" For about the tenth time tonight, I expect You to rebuke me, but instead, You wrap one of Your arms tightly around the middle of my back and continue to press me against You.

"Because no one has yet to feel for me as you say you do." I guess I shouldn't bother bringing up that I haven't said anything.

"It's not something you said, Bella. Not now, not before...it's not even something you're thinking. It's something you've been projecting, I think, without any conscious realization."

"That's not fair!" I say, the childish sentiment escaping my mouth before I can stop it, though I correct myself straightaway. "What I mean is, could you be more specific, my Lord? If as you say I'm not realizing I'm doing it, then I can't propose to know how to stop it."

You sigh and use the hand not holding my back to rub Your forehead like You're frustrated with me. I didn't mean to make You frustrated...not now, not ever. "Oh Bellatrix...you are an intelligent witch. I trust by now you've noticed your occlumency skills are much in need of practice. While once you were one of few people to ever succeed in blocking me from access to your thoughts, your defenses now are shaky at best."

"My Lord-I'm sure it's just a result of my time in Azkaban. Whilst there I didn't have much need to block my thoughts from anyone. Perhaps I've simply...fallen out of habit?" I suggest and then cover my mouth again. I didn't mean to interrupt You...or to sound so defensive.

"I didn't ask for excuses, Bella. And as it stands I am not concerned. Give it another couple of days and if your ability still has yet to return, we will speak of it again," You say with a tone of unquestionable finality. I feel my cheeks flush red as I also recognize the need to return to some proper manner of addressing You.

"There. You've done it again."

"What-I'm sure I don't-"

"You mean to cloak me with it." I draw back and meet Your eyes for just a moment...more than a little afraid that You aren't Yourself.

"Cloak you with what, my Lord?" I ask gently. But You shut Your eyes and loosen Your grip on me.

"Memories. Scents. Feelings...in your body. Moments...you've spent in my company...and...something else. The undeniable notion that you would do anything for me. That you would do anything to stop time as it is and stay here on this chair with me indefinitely." Something in Your face crinkles as You explain all this to me, the way one's face would when confronted with a cockroach or Asafoetida or some other disgusting thing. Do You mean to mock me? I don't know, but I can feel my eyes welling up which only adds to my embarrassment. All those years I envisioned our reunion, all the ways I imagined it might go, it was never like this.

"And you don't feel any of it? Anything, at all?"

"No. I see it. I hear it. To some extent I experience echoes of what you've experienced, physically...but nothing more than that."

"Because you really don't or because you don't want to?" I'm pushing my good fortune, I know. This "it" that we're talking about is the "it" that You would sooner call weakness than love. And weakness, in Your mind, has always been something to squash. Study it, understand it, recognize where it comes from-and then destroy it-to be a better soldier. This is how You trained all of Your Death Eaters and I am no exception.

"I never intended to have a life partner, Bella," You say. It's my turn to be confused. Who said anything about life partners? Or is that another desire I'm supposed to be projecting onto You?

"My Lord, please. I'm not talking about partners...or life...though I've known you longer than anyone outside my family. I'm just asking you to stop shielding yourself away from me. We are here, restarting our movement after fifteen years and that's remarkable enough...we are different so why shouldn't we do things differently? All I mean is...trust me, why don't you? Or haven't I proven myself enough?" I try looking up at You but You either can't or won't make eye contact with me. For awhile, we don't say anything. You sit here in Your chair with Your eyes closed, running one finger up and down my spine in a seemingly absent-minded way. And I remain perched in Your lap in a bath towel, the side of my face pressed dangerously close to Your chest, where I can feel Your cool, even breathing. Maybe You've even fallen asleep. But my mind is racing. What is this? What has the past 48 hours of my life been but mere minutes compared to all those years locked up with the dementors and thinking I'd never be warm like this again?

"It was never about that, Bellatrix," You say finally.

"Then what is it about?"

"Companionship of any kind is transactional, as I've always told you. I keep my Death Eaters around me based purely on the various resources they have to offer to me and have no need or use for those without anything to give. In addition to their groveling loyalty, some offer connections, certain abilities, locations to hold meetings, monetary resources. For some, they have no real talent or use to me but they do offer me their lives all the same."

"And what do I offer you, my Lord?"

"Much of what I already mentioned. You're valuable as a fighter, good at dueling, exceptional at torturing prisoners...you are intelligent, capable and quick to learn. When on form you are more than adept at employing Occlumency to prevent the other side from discerning any of our plans. You are loyal beyond measure, well-connected, of a strong bloodline…" You trail off and my eyes are wide. You have hardly so much has paid me any kind of compliment before and yet here You are, holding onto me and listing off all the reasons I'm valuable to You. I should be ecstatic. So why aren't I?

"...And I suppose there isn't any getting around the fact that in the past you have also provided me certain physical pleasures and luxuries-outlets of release, lets call them-that the others have not."

I think back to the memory in the Pensieve. Young Bellatrix, flush against the tabletop in Your dining room, Your orgasm pumping into her, and the whole lower half of my body seems to cry out with longing.

"I would be more than honored to be that outlet again, my Lord, if you were to require it."

I watch the crook of Your mouth turn up in almost a smile as I struggle against the memory from the Pensieve.

"Perhaps. For now, we both need to rest. Your thoughts are giving me a headache, its been a long couple of days and I'd like to lie with something warm tonight."

 _Sometime, 1991_

 _Dear Voldemort,_

 _It always amazed me how different we all were. If we hadn't all ended up in Slytherin, my father always said (though he certainly didn't wish it) that I would have been in Gryffindor, Meda would have been in Hufflepuff and Cissy in Ravenclaw-if that tells You anything about who we were as children and the women we grew up to be. We looked different, too-not different enough for anyone to question our parentage, but different enough that we all stuck out in our own ways, none of us blending into another.~_


End file.
